The scale and ferocity of wildfires across the planet in recent months indicates this increasingly devastating form of extreme weather event has become the razor edge of the climate crisis. That applies especially to Europe, the world’s fastest warming continent.
Recent studies show the complex interaction of factors contributing to this wildfire spread, highlighting a lack of preparedness for a worsening scenario – unless temperatures are forced down by co-ordinated human interventions. Ravaging fires in Greece, where a 25m wall of fire reached its capital Athens last week, and fires across vast areas of California and Canada, have not only become deadly threats to communities but increasingly cause global-scale air pollution.
Over the past 20 years, wildfires have become a new contributor to the parlous cycle generating carbon emissions, raising atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and exacerbating global warming. Uncontrollable burning is at unprecedented levels because of a combination of extreme heat and prolonged heatwaves and droughts. The evidence shows the ferocity and frequency of fires is being exacerbated by human-induced climate change.
Wildfires in Canada and Amazonia last year were at least three times more likely due to climate change and contributed to high levels of CO2 emissions globally, according to the State of Wildfires report issued last week. For the first time, the report takes stock of extreme wildfires, focusing on the 2023-2024 fire season (March 2023-February 2024). It explains their causes and assesses whether events could have been predicted. It also evaluates how risk of similar events will change in future under different climate change scenarios, and underlines the merits of climate attribution research. It was compiled by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia (UAE), the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, the UK Met Office and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
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It finds emissions from wildfires globally were 16 per cent above average, totalling 8.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Emissions from fires in the Canadian boreal forests were more than nine times the average of the past two decades and contributed almost a quarter of the emissions. An unusually high number of fires were also seen in northern parts of South America, particularly in Brazil’s Amazonas state and in neighbouring areas of Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. This led to the Amazon region experiencing among the worst air quality ratings on the planet. Meanwhile, wildfires in the Arctic have become common and more extensive.
A study by World Weather Attribution found the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove devastating wildfires in Brazil’s Pantanal in June were 40 per cent more intense due to climate change. The “supercharged” wildfires may have killed millions of animals in the world’s largest wetland, it concludes.
Wildfires are killing people, destroying properties and infrastructure, causing mass evacuations, threatening livelihoods and damaging vital ecosystems, noted Dr Matthew Jones of UEA. “Wildfires are becoming more frequent and intense as the climate warms, and both society and the environment are suffering from the consequences.”
The loss of carbon stocks from boreal forests in Canada and tropical forests in South America has lasting implications for the Earth’s climate. Forests take decades to centuries to recover from fire disturbance, meaning that extreme fire years such as 2023-24 result in a lasting deficit in carbon storage for many years to come.
Climate models suggest the toll from extreme wildfires will increase by the end of the century, particularly in future scenarios where greenhouse gas emissions remain high. These projections are yet another indication of the urgent need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage vegetation to reduce the risk and impacts of increasingly severe wildfires on society and ecosystems.
Several factors control fire, including weather conditions influenced by climate change, the density of vegetation on the landscape influenced by climate and land management, and ignition opportunities influenced by people and lightning. The critical lesson is the need to cut emissions (to reduce temperatures) while scaling up adaptation measures in preparation for unavoidable impacts. At least, the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism is showing its worth at an immediate, practical level. It pools resources such as planes and firefighters which are deployed when a government needs help in the event of a natural disaster.
In Ireland’s case, the biggest threat from extreme weather events is likely to be destructive flooding, but all it takes is a drought of a few weeks to make land vulnerable to wildfires. We are not adequately prepared on either front and have yet to deploy nature-based solutions at a level that can eliminate much of the climate risk facing the country. Indications are Europe and the world are equally ill-equipped.